Brave Keenan Santos Pays With his Life For Standing Up To Street Harassment

On Saturday night an innocent dinner of six friends in Mumbai, India, ended in the violent murder of a 24-year-old man and left another victim fighting for his life in Kokilaben hospital. How did this happen? Keenan Santos confronted a vile drunk that was sexually harassing his girlfriend.

According to the DN Nagar police in Amboli, Andheri residents Keenan Santos (24), Reuben Fernandez (29) and Avinash Solanki (31) dined out at Amboli Bar and Kitchen on Saturday night where they were joined by Santos and Fernandez’ girlfriend and a common friend.

The group of friends left the restaurant at 11 pm and headed out for some paan. Standing at a nearby stall, they were approached by a clearly inebriated eve-teaser, a euphemism for sexual harassment of women by men in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, who was alleged to have made sexual advances towards Santos girlfriend. As a natural reaction to defend his girlfriend, Santos confronted the man and pushed him away. A heated exchange erupted with alleged attacker, Jitendra Rana, fleeing the scene, whilst threatening to return. Shaken but not taking the threats seriously they continued to enjoy their night.

A short time later Rana returned with a group of what is believed to be 13 men brandishing swords and knives. Santos was stabbed so violently in the stomach that he was disemboweled, Fernandez was stabbed four times and Bali suffered minor cuts and bruises.

Both men were taken to Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani hospital where Santos was pronounced dead at 1 am and Fernandez is still critically ill. Santos father arrived at the hospital moments before he died, he said:

“”I drove to the hospital, and reached to find my son struggling for his life. He breathed his last within minutes.”

Senior police inspector, Vijay Kumar Bhoite, who is in charge of the investigation made this statement:

“We have arrested Rana, Both and Durgaj. We are on the lookout for the fourth accomplice, Deepak… We have asked the hotel to give us their CCTV grabs, so we can find out how many more goons were involved in the crime.”

We at Hollaback! want to give a big shout out to our sisters at Hollaback! Mumbai and want to show our support at such a tragic loss of human life. We encourage you to keep holla-ing back in the face of adversity. We also pay tribute to brave and heroic soul Keenan Santos for standing up and giving his life to speak out against injustice.

7 responses to “Brave Keenan Santos Pays With his Life For Standing Up To Street Harassment”

Reuben and keenan ……………. i am greatly touched by your story and what happened to you guys. I dont have words to express how bad i feel for your family and friends. you guys battled for your life and stood fearlessly for what was right. I believe if the people around you watching what was happening if they could have come forward to help you guys and then probably we would have two brave heroes still with us. i hope we get justice and those heartless and mercyless rascals should get the worst punishment and i personally want them to suffer 100 times more what you guys went through. I dont want that your sacrifice to go in vain. i know what would happen as per law they might get released and they might roam around killing more innocents but if court cannot do justice….. i am sure God above who love you guys so much and missed you so much , called you to be with him…………. knows and would definetly do justice. we all love you and pray for your family and friends to come out of this shock and May Your Soul Rest In Peace.

please encourage everyone to stop patronising this reataurant ‘amboli’ at amboli . if they could not stand for their regular patrons just a small thig we can do to make these guys feel the city’s ire against them.

My condolences to the families and as all souls day happened yesterday may their souls rest in peace.

Also a lesson for us not to linger around after teaching such treachorous people who have no fear of anything. there’s a fine line between admonishing the terror maniacs and then staying in their field of vision to aggravate things. if Somebody had guided them to leave the place immidiately some of this could have been averted.

our system is still not equipped to defend the right so we have to defend ourselves as life has no value here. we ourselves are our own protectors , not the cops , nor the government.